Deploying Azure Bicep using GitHub Actions

Using Azure Bicep and want to deploy your Bicep configuration to Azure using GitHub Actions, in this blog post I am going to show how you can achieve this!

What is Azure Bicep?

Its the Next Generation of ARM templates – Bicep is a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for ARM templates. Taken from the documentation:-

It aims to drastically simplify the authoring experience with a cleaner syntax and better support for modularity and code re-use. Bicep is a transparent abstraction over ARM and ARM templates, which means anything that can be done in an ARM Template can be done in bicep
https://github.com/Azure/bicep

Examples of Azure Bicep configurations can be found here:- https://github.com/Azure/bicep/tree/main/docs/examples

What is GitHub Actions?

They allow you to create workflows with your GitHub repository – similar to Azure DevOps Pipelines; they allow you create an automated workflow(s). They are pretty awesome!

Recommended reading

What is GitHub Actions for Azure

Azure/actions GitHub Repository

Bicep sample configuration

Before I show the sample configuration, I also recommend the Bicep extension for VSCode – it is awesome, with built-in Intellisense!

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-azuretools.vscode-bicep

In my example, I want my Bicep file to deploy an Azure Virtual Network

param location string = resourceGroup().location
 
var virtualNetwork = {
  name: 'tamopsvnet'
  location: location
  addressPrefixes: [
    '10.0.0.0/16'
    ]
  subnets: [
    {
      name: 'testsubnet1'
      properties: {
        addressPrefix: '10.0.0.0/24'
      }
    }
    {
      name: 'testsubnet2'
      properties: {
        addressPrefix: '10.0.1.0/24'
      }
    }
  ]
}
 
resource virtualnetwork 'Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks@2020-06-01' = {
  name: virtualNetwork.name
  location: virtualNetwork.location
  properties: {
    addressSpace: {
      addressPrefixes: virtualNetwork.addressPrefixes
    }
    subnets: virtualNetwork.subnets
  }
}

Folder Structure

thomasthorntoncloud-azurebicep-github-action
    └── .github
       └── workflows
          └── azure-bicep-deploy.yml
    └── BicepFiles
       └── main.bicep

GitHub Repository Secrets

Within the GitHub repository to where you are going to be running the Bicep configuration, select settings -> secrets

Add 2 secrets

AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID – Subscription ID of the Azure Subscription
AZURE_CREDENTIALS – in json format as below, this is the Service Principal that will be used for az login and to deploy your Bicep configuration

{
  "clientId": "<GUID>",
  "clientSecret": "<GUID>",
  "subscriptionId": "<GUID>",
  "tenantId": "<GUID>",
}

GitHub Action to Deploy Azure Bicep

To add this GitHub Action to your repository, within your GitHub Repo – select Actions -> Workflows -> New workflow
(Or if you merge into main branch with the folder structure above, it will automatically create the GitHub Action for you )

GitHub Action

name: 'AzureBicepDeploy'

on:
  push:
    branches:
    - main
  pull_request:

jobs:

  AzureBicepDeploy:
    name: 'AzureBicepDeploy'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      ResourceGroupName: tamops-bicep-rg
      ResourceGroupLocation: "uksouth"
    environment: production

    steps:

    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - uses: azure/login@v1
      with:
        creds: ${{ secrets.AZURE_CREDENTIALS }}

    - name: Azure Bicep Build
      run: |
        az bicep build --file BicepFiles/main.bicep

    - name: Az CLI Create Resource Group
      uses: Azure/CLI@v1
      with:
        inlineScript: |
          #!/bin/bash
          az group create --name ${{ env.ResourceGroupName }} --location ${{ env.ResourceGroupLocation }}

    - name: Deploy Azure Bicep
      uses: Azure/arm-deploy@v1
      with:
        resourceGroupName: ${{ env.ResourceGroupName }}
        subscriptionId: ${{ secrets.AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID }}
        template: ./BicepFiles/main.json

Use below if AZ CLI < 2.20.0

    - name: Azure Bicep Build
      run: |
        curl -Lo bicep https://github.com/Azure/bicep/releases/latest/download/bicep-linux-x64
        chmod +x ./bicep
        ./bicep build BicepFiles/main.bicep